Never Enough Time in the Day
Isn't that the case?
I am twenty five hours from landing in Harrisburg, and too much to do before I climb on that plane tonight. The modern world has made us into a race of psychotic multi-taskers, for this I blame computers and cell phones. Before these two banes of man's existence, communication bottlenecks placed practical limits on what could be even reasonably accomplished in a day. Now, in our ever connected, never off life we have convinced our selves that we can accomplish ten times what our ancestors ever could, and so we try. Quickly, this attempt becomes an expectation, and spills over into our personal life. So we try harder and faster. Problem is, I am not sure we are really accomplishing much more of any value. How many people do you know that work until ten at night catching up on their email? How much of it really matters?
Notes from the week. The Fiancee is just too cool for the room. We took a refresher dance lesson on Tuesday night. She decided to straighten her hair, came from work in the "uniform", black top, dark jeans, heels, black leather car coat. Smoking hot. She has the Manhattan thing down to a tee. I just walk along and smile.
We dance well together, mostly because we have fun and take it light. The only problem is that she is a tall gal, 5'9, and I am barely 5'10, so leading can be a challenge. A lot of ballroom dance steps work best when the gal is short and very light with respect to the guy. Also, when she took lessons before it was with a two left footed guy friend and she wound up leading, so she tries to lead me. The results can be a laugh riot. 95 days to W-day, we should have it by then.
This is important because the first song is a Cover of "I't Had to Be You" done by Harry Connik Jr. Very classy, but demands talent on the dance floor.
I will keep you posted. I might sell tickets.
I have been reading and digesting a couple of posts in the past week around love, lack of love, marriage, angst in marriage, and of course, sex. Then I had a freak out yesterday when I read an article on MSN about the real Desperate Housewives. The author went and interviewed a number of women who took up a version of the mommy track in the burbs to get their take on the series and how close to home it hit. Forget the TV show, a lot of what those women were talking about hit close to my home, at least my last two.
For those of you reading, I did not start this as a relationship blog, I actually was more interested in writing on a variety of subjects, and in time I will return to that theme, but very quickly I realized that my upcoming nuptials were forcing me to confront and analyze a lot of things about my previous marriages, in particular my last one. I love the Fiance and am convinced that she is the one...it is like that country western song "God bless the broken road that lead me straight to you.." .
Back to Desperate Housewives. Condensed Version
One woman claims to be so overwhelmed by the isolation and constant drum of child raising that she takes prescription medication to cope. ( that would be Ex nbr 2)
One copes by having the perfect little home. The only thing she has control over is how clean and organized the house is, and so she attacks it with a gusto bordering on obsession, driving everyone else to distraction. ( ah, that would be ex 2 as well).
You get the picture.
I am convinced that the suburban life with the commuting corporate dad and stay at home mom can be a nasty trap for everyone. It can be isolating and a combination of painfully boring and excruciatingly stressful for the stay at home mom. For the dad it is even more insidious. Men say their wives change when the kids come along, they focus on raising kids to the detriment of the relationship.
But men change too, just as profoundly. We become overwhelmed by the sense of responsibility for this family and our need to bring home the bacon by the pigload. Men work harder at the job after kids, not because we are trying to escape family, but because all of a sudden our career takes on life and death proportions. What was a job to pay for toys and tarts just became the critical life support system for these fragile, special little beings and their mother, who can go from partner and lover quickly to dependent in our minds.
Now this is not all bad. Kids need care, families need financial success and security. It is the modern implementation that is the trap, mom stuck at home raising kids without an outlet, dad at the office putting in hours, both spending large segments of the day and their lives interacting with everyone else BUT each other. Both going nuts, convinced the other one has it good and can never understand how hard their role is.
Ultimately, we fill our lives with our roles. We adapt. We stop seeing our partners for who they are and see them as their role, they stop being a person and become the archetype, and our archetype reacts to that. We are no longer John and Sue, but Everyman and Everywoman.
We fill our lives with our roles, and there is never enough time for each other. In truth the archetypes take over and there isn't even enough time for ourselves.
A veritable petri dish for anger, resentment, frustration and self loathing.
So many great couples have problems simply because they unthinkingly signup for this lifestyle and start living it until it is too late. They think it is what they want because it is what everyone else wants.
They never see the trap.
I see the trap.
I have talked to the Fiancee about this a lot, and while she cannot feel it the way I do, she gets it intellectually and she appreciates that my perspective comes from having lived it. Next on the list after wedding planning:
How to live a happy, full, together life. One with light and joy.
I'll keep you posted.
I am twenty five hours from landing in Harrisburg, and too much to do before I climb on that plane tonight. The modern world has made us into a race of psychotic multi-taskers, for this I blame computers and cell phones. Before these two banes of man's existence, communication bottlenecks placed practical limits on what could be even reasonably accomplished in a day. Now, in our ever connected, never off life we have convinced our selves that we can accomplish ten times what our ancestors ever could, and so we try. Quickly, this attempt becomes an expectation, and spills over into our personal life. So we try harder and faster. Problem is, I am not sure we are really accomplishing much more of any value. How many people do you know that work until ten at night catching up on their email? How much of it really matters?
Notes from the week. The Fiancee is just too cool for the room. We took a refresher dance lesson on Tuesday night. She decided to straighten her hair, came from work in the "uniform", black top, dark jeans, heels, black leather car coat. Smoking hot. She has the Manhattan thing down to a tee. I just walk along and smile.
We dance well together, mostly because we have fun and take it light. The only problem is that she is a tall gal, 5'9, and I am barely 5'10, so leading can be a challenge. A lot of ballroom dance steps work best when the gal is short and very light with respect to the guy. Also, when she took lessons before it was with a two left footed guy friend and she wound up leading, so she tries to lead me. The results can be a laugh riot. 95 days to W-day, we should have it by then.
This is important because the first song is a Cover of "I't Had to Be You" done by Harry Connik Jr. Very classy, but demands talent on the dance floor.
I will keep you posted. I might sell tickets.
I have been reading and digesting a couple of posts in the past week around love, lack of love, marriage, angst in marriage, and of course, sex. Then I had a freak out yesterday when I read an article on MSN about the real Desperate Housewives. The author went and interviewed a number of women who took up a version of the mommy track in the burbs to get their take on the series and how close to home it hit. Forget the TV show, a lot of what those women were talking about hit close to my home, at least my last two.
For those of you reading, I did not start this as a relationship blog, I actually was more interested in writing on a variety of subjects, and in time I will return to that theme, but very quickly I realized that my upcoming nuptials were forcing me to confront and analyze a lot of things about my previous marriages, in particular my last one. I love the Fiance and am convinced that she is the one...it is like that country western song "God bless the broken road that lead me straight to you.." .
Back to Desperate Housewives. Condensed Version
One woman claims to be so overwhelmed by the isolation and constant drum of child raising that she takes prescription medication to cope. ( that would be Ex nbr 2)
One copes by having the perfect little home. The only thing she has control over is how clean and organized the house is, and so she attacks it with a gusto bordering on obsession, driving everyone else to distraction. ( ah, that would be ex 2 as well).
You get the picture.
I am convinced that the suburban life with the commuting corporate dad and stay at home mom can be a nasty trap for everyone. It can be isolating and a combination of painfully boring and excruciatingly stressful for the stay at home mom. For the dad it is even more insidious. Men say their wives change when the kids come along, they focus on raising kids to the detriment of the relationship.
But men change too, just as profoundly. We become overwhelmed by the sense of responsibility for this family and our need to bring home the bacon by the pigload. Men work harder at the job after kids, not because we are trying to escape family, but because all of a sudden our career takes on life and death proportions. What was a job to pay for toys and tarts just became the critical life support system for these fragile, special little beings and their mother, who can go from partner and lover quickly to dependent in our minds.
Now this is not all bad. Kids need care, families need financial success and security. It is the modern implementation that is the trap, mom stuck at home raising kids without an outlet, dad at the office putting in hours, both spending large segments of the day and their lives interacting with everyone else BUT each other. Both going nuts, convinced the other one has it good and can never understand how hard their role is.
Ultimately, we fill our lives with our roles. We adapt. We stop seeing our partners for who they are and see them as their role, they stop being a person and become the archetype, and our archetype reacts to that. We are no longer John and Sue, but Everyman and Everywoman.
We fill our lives with our roles, and there is never enough time for each other. In truth the archetypes take over and there isn't even enough time for ourselves.
A veritable petri dish for anger, resentment, frustration and self loathing.
So many great couples have problems simply because they unthinkingly signup for this lifestyle and start living it until it is too late. They think it is what they want because it is what everyone else wants.
They never see the trap.
I see the trap.
I have talked to the Fiancee about this a lot, and while she cannot feel it the way I do, she gets it intellectually and she appreciates that my perspective comes from having lived it. Next on the list after wedding planning:
How to live a happy, full, together life. One with light and joy.
I'll keep you posted.
posted by Maurice_Basilius at 9:02 AM
2 Comments:
1) I TOTALLY love that song!! Not the biggest Rascal Flatts fan. . .but love the song.
2)Can I just say-I don't have a cell phone and will never-if it kills me-have a cell phone. It's my tiny form of rebellion against all you mentioned.
3)I know you see the trap-and if anyone can sidestep it-it's you.
Warning, Maurice, it's COLD out here.
I saw an article online recently that polled travellers on whether or not they would like cell phone use to be allowed while in airplanes. Most said no. I'm divided on the subject myself. Granted, if I weren't so good at what I do, my office would probably make sure I had an able-bodied assistant to help. On the other hand, it was VERY hard go to without wireless access (email and phone) for five hours in each direction to and from California this past week, for personal, not work reasons.
As to the trap, it is a yawning one. Even though I was employed full-time but working from home for 14 months after my son was born, I was still going nuts from the seclusion from the rest of the world. I'd bet most women whose husbands want them to stay at home and be a nice little mommy think they have it made until they find that email address they never knew their husband had, or condoms in his overnight bag when she's on the pill. It's like living on a peninsula that just broke off from the rest of the world to go floating out into the ocean alone.
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